The present invention relates in general to a telephone system, and, more specifically, to a system and method for automatically conveying certain information that is predefined by a user to one or more participants in a telephone call.
A telephone user engaged in a personal or business telephone call often desires to convey certain information to another party participating in the telephone call when performing a personal or business transaction. Examples of information elements that a party may wish to share include the user's street address, e-mail address, facsimile telephone number, instant messaging address, cellular or other mobile telephone number, personal or business webpage address or URL, various number sequences (e.g., social security number, credit card number, and other identification numbers), or other customized elements.
Some types of such information are not very well suited for oral communication (such as long strings of numbers) because of the possibilities of errors in delivering the data and/or in recording the information at the receiving end and because of concerns about privacy. Creation of a text communication to convey the information separately from the telephone call may reduce errors but typically requires significant time and effort. Furthermore, the time and effort of sending a text communication may end up being duplicated many times whenever the same information is sent separately to many different parties as a result of separate telephone calls.
Speaking aloud the desired information elements is often subject to disadvantages of being time consuming and otherwise inconvenient. The information elements themselves may also be difficult to remember, thereby causing the user to divert attention away from the telephone conversation. In order to avoid these problems during a telephone call, the user may often decide to defer conveying the information until after the telephone call is completed (e.g., by sending a follow-up e-mail, fax, or return telephone call). Providing a follow-up action in this way is not very efficient, is subject to undesirable delays, or might be completely forgotten by the user.